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Van Nuys, Historic? Preservation Effort No Joke

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Times Staff Writer

Built in 1930, Donna Hart’s Spanish-style California bungalow is design-magazine pretty.

Elegant arches mark the windows and doorways, and stenciled ships sail across its mahogany doors. The thick lath-and-plaster walls speak of an era when homes were built to last and look good for the duration.

But perhaps the most striking thing about her home is the location. It’s in Van Nuys, in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, a place more synonymous with post-World War II tract houses and shopping malls than with Craftsman architecture.

Hart’s neighborhood near the Van Nuys Civic Center is likely to become the first historic preservation zone in the San Fernando Valley.

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When the designation comes -- next year at the earliest -- it will be welcomed by preservationists who have long tried to bring more attention to the Valley’s architectural richness.

Until now, much of the talk about historic preservation in the Valley has centered on individual buildings, particularly choice examples of so-called Googie architecture. Conjuring up visions of the Jetsons, these midcentury modern buildings include the Hanna-Barbera complex in the Cahuenga Pass and the Lakeside Carwash in Burbank.

Neither has received landmark status, but so far, both have avoided the wrecking ball.

That’s a better track record than in the past. In the late 1980s, a battle by some Studio City residents to preserve a beloved carwash not only failed but became a joke for late-night comics.

Hart knows well the paradox of living in a historic neighborhood in the Valley.

More than once, she has been asked where she lives, answered “Van Nuys” and been warned: “Don’t tell anybody.”

But Hart loves her home, and it and the historic houses of her neighbors may finally get the respect that advocates think they deserve.

“It’s a sign that the San Fernando Valley is coming of age, that it’s maturing and beginning to think about preserving the most significant elements of its architectural heritage,” said Ken Bernstein, director of conservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy.

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The square-mile area, Bernstein points out, “is one of the most intact early residential neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.”

According to Valley historian Kevin Roderick, Van Nuys got its start in 1911 when a clever marketer touted the barely existent community as the “largest opportunity on the entire Pacific Coast today.” He sold it like a time-share, luring prospective buyers with free barbecue and transportation. Soon, 200 homes were served by 40 businesses.

In a historic preservation overlay zone, called a historic district in most cities, Bernstein explains, “the individual structures need not be of landmark quality, but, taken together, they represent a cohesive collection of historic buildings.”

In such districts, residents must get approval before they can make changes to historic exteriors. The designation would also make residents eligible for a reduction in property taxes.

Los Angeles now has 20 such zones. The newest, designated in September, is Windsor Square, an area of 1,200 mansion-like homes near Hancock Park.

Eleven other areas are under consideration, Bernstein said. The Van Nuys neighborhood is one of three being considered in the San Fernando Valley, the others being Stonehurst, a group of stone-clad bungalows in Sun Valley, and the modernist Joseph Eichler tract in Balboa Highlands, in Granada Hills.

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Establishing a historic district in Van Nuys has been in the works for more than four years, according to Lydia Mather, a graphic artist who has led the effort. Mather and her photographer husband, Jesse, live on Hamlin Street, near Van Nuys High School, alma mater of Marilyn Monroe and Robert Redford.

Hidden behind a fence with a bright blue gate, Mather’s house dates to 1925. “It’s a Spanish Gothic Tudor California stucco bungalow,” she said with a laugh.

The historic designation process has been painfully slow for preservationists, who have seen dozens of Craftsman and Spanish Revival bungalows razed or stripped of original windows and other period details.

As part of the process, the city Planning Department has finished, but not yet released, a survey evaluating all the structures in the area bounded by Gilmore Street on the south, Vanowen Street on the north, Kester Avenue on the west and Hazeltine Avenue on the east.

The planners describe all noncommercial buildings in the area as either “contributing structures” -- those that reflect the historic period to be preserved (1900 to 1940, in the case of the Van Nuys neighborhood) and are basically intact -- or “noncontributing structures,” those built later or that have been altered so significantly that they no longer reflect their historic architecture, said Bernstein, a Valley native and resident.

The survey has identified about 400 Craftsman homes, Spanish Revival bungalows, vintage kit houses and other buildings as contributing structures, said Jim Dantona, planning deputy for City Councilman Tony Cardenas, whose district includes the neighborhood.

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Mather said she loves the area, for its past and its present. Many young Latino families live there, she said, but so do people of all ages and ethnicities: “Just in this block, we probably cover every continent and religion, and gay and straight.”

Mather argues that the value of her Van Nuys neighborhood lies not just in its architecture but in its reflection of “what is traditionally a very Southern California way of life.... Single-home ownership, a way to get a leg up, that’s what the Valley was built on.”

Although Mather thinks historic district designation would boost real estate values, her home and those around it are modest, most currently selling under $500,000.

“It’s not big mansions,” she said. “It’s not Encino. It’s not Beverly Hills. It’s Van Nuys.”

Bernstein is impressed with the effort residents have put into getting the area recognized.

“Creating a historic district takes a great deal of hard work and neighborhood mobilization,” he said.

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Should the area get the designation, changes to contributing structures would have to be approved by a five-member committee.

Preservationists applaud the fact that homeowners would no longer be allowed to rip out graceful period windows and replace them with aluminum-framed ones from discount stores.

But Mather said she hopes the standard-keepers will be flexible.

Angelenos treasure the freedom to paint their houses whatever color they wish. “I don’t want to see a beige community,” she said. “We may be saving buildings, but it’s really about saving a community.”

Before the survey is released for community comment, city officials will sit down, probably in December, with the L.A. Conservancy to set the exact boundaries of the proposed district.

The 400 contributing buildings identified so far represent less than half the structures in the square-mile area, Dantona said. Planners would like to see a higher concentration -- say, 75% -- of contributing structures. That could be achieved by reducing the overall size of the district or by forming a district from noncontiguous blocks.

After the boundaries are decided, the plan must still go before the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, the Planning Commission and the City Council.

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Mather said she thinks historic status is the only way to guarantee that vintage buildings are preserved and that the neighborhood doesn’t fall prey to land speculators, a constant danger in Southern California, where land is money.

She said the effort toward a historic district is “really about protecting the hopes and dreams of hardworking people.”

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